Linux Asceticism

Most well-known living philosophies -such as Cynicism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Buddhism, and Sufism- advocate some form of Asceticism. This could involve various acts such as fasting, deliberately confronting personal fears, or even something as subtle as choosing not to pour salt on food. But regardless of the specific way that these practices are pursued, the main goal remains the same: Strengthening your body and mind to make yourself indifferent to and indifferent from the things that are outside your control. That is to say, turn yourself into someone who can handle hardships with as few possessions as possible.

When people argue for using Linux, they often focus on either political or practical reasons. For instance, they may choose Linux because it supports the principles of software freedom and personal control. They may also choose it for reasons such as cost savings, customizability, flexibility to meet specific needs, performance, tool availability, and so on.

However, there’s another often-overlooked aspect that can make using a minimal Linux distribution worthwhile: using a minimal Linux distro on your personal computer is a form of Askesis -disciplined practices done for self-improvement. At first, it will probably feel uncomfortable and overwhelming. You’ll face many problems that you’ll need to solve. But you’ll also come to realize and understand better that many of the features you take for granted in an OS with a preconfigured desktop environment are actually separate components that need to exist on your system for you to have that functionality.

There will be times that you might need to understand what a network interface is, what a block device is, what mounting is, how keyboard mappings are handled differently on the virtual console or in a desktop environment/window manager, and so on. It will force you to learn more and more and you’ll also begin to appreciate the underlying elements that are often hidden away by the layers we rely on. This effect will be amplified especially if you like to tinker and try to make things happen as you want them to be.

In the end, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of what happens under the hood. Your comfort zone will broaden as you develop the mindset of solving problems. I know that this kind of reasoning is not as forceful as the pragmatic or ideological reasons for some people, but it still is a good bonus that further motivated me to learn more and more about Linux.

For the last few years, I’ve been mainly using Arch Linux as my choice of personal OS, and for the past few months, I’ve been using NixOS. Although I have not used/tried MacOS yet, I guess that if I tried it, most of the skills I acquired through using Linux would carry over to it and I would not have much problems getting adapted to it. However, I’m not so sure about the other way around, especially for those who switch from Windows to Linux.

If you’re going to fight in the rain, train in the storm.
- Unknown

I think it’s good to have tools in our toolbox that let us work minimally, but I also think it does not make much sense to use them all the time if there are already other tools available to achieve things in an easier and faster way. So I am not against using non-minimal software by any means. They are fine as long as they don’t introduce more problems than they solve.